Dealing With The Exhaustion

Many people right now aren’t just tired—they’re spiritually, emotionally, and mentally exhausted. In this episode of Speaking of Faith, Bishop DeDe and Adam talk about what it means to live faithfully when you feel overwhelmed by the world, the news, expectations, and the pressure to always be informed, always be active, and always be okay.

This conversation centers on finding stability in unstable times. Bishop DeDe reflects on the importance of grounding practices—simple, intentional habits that bring us back to the present moment and back to God. Prayer, breath prayers, mindfulness exercises, journaling, rest, creative outlets, and even setting boundaries around news and social media are not selfish practices; they are spiritual practices that help us remain whole and faithful in a chaotic world.

A key theme in this episode is the balance between activism and self-care. Faith calls us to care about the world and to work for justice and peace, but we cannot pour from an empty cup. Even Jesus rested, stepped away from crowds, slept during storms, and showed human emotion, anxiety, grief, and compassion. Our vulnerability, doubt, and imperfection are not failures of faith—they are part of being human and part of being faithful.

The conversation also reminds us that small acts matter. Kindness, gratitude, listening to someone, being present in our daily lives—these are not small in the eyes of God. When the world feels overwhelming, we often think we need to do something huge to make a difference, but most of us are called to be faithful in ordinary moments with the people right in front of us.

Ultimately, this episode is about learning to live with humility and intentionality. We cannot control everything happening in the world, but we can choose how we pray, how we speak, how we rest, how we treat others, and how we care for our own souls. Faith does not remove exhaustion, but it can give us stability, hope, and the strength to keep going—one faithful step at a time.

AI Disclosure: To support our staff in their limited time,  many of our episode summaries are first generated by AI and then edited by the Communications Director to accurately reflect and preview our podcast episodes.

Transcript

Bishop DeDe (00:17.507)
Hey friends, welcome to the podcast, Speaking of Faith. My name is DeDe Duncan-Probe. I am the Episcopal Bishop of Central New York. I'm joined by Adam Eichelberger, who is our Director of Communications, and we're here to speak about our faith, how to talk about those things that matter most to us. It can be very hard to do that, and it takes some humility, some curiosity, and some willingness to learn and learn from each other.

And so today we're going to talk about in this time when there's so much happening in our world, where we may feel destabilized by watching the news or sad or anxious or fearful, uncertain, all of these emotions that are just all around us. How do we regain our footing? How do we find a place of peace, of safety, of where do we start with this? I was thinking, you know, we obviously with our faith, with prayer,

we turn to God in prayer and we start by praying. Maybe pulling out our prayer books and reading a prayer either silently or aloud. Calling a friend and saying, hey, would you pray with me today? Maybe going out and spending time in nature, walking in tree therapy, going out and reconnecting. Sitting in silence, turning all the noise off and just letting ourselves sit and be quiet. I have a big advocate of

selecting the news that you read, of choosing what is present in your home, whether it's music or news or voices or TV programs, that we select those things that help us and encourage us and limit those things that harm us or further destabilize ourselves. And then to practice the agency that we have, to recognize that we can't do anything about

what is happening on the other side of the world. We may not be in a, our sphere of influence may be smaller than we wish it were, but there are things we can do, including prayer, listening to music, going to help someone reaching out, calling a friend we haven't talked to in a long time and reconnecting, painting or drawing or creating. know, artistic outlets are a great place.

Bishop DeDe (02:39.245)
to take some of that anxiety and that sense of powerlessness and to actually express it in written word or in weaving or whatever your craft may be. So being intentional about planning our schedule that way. But I do wanna talk about some practices that we can have. One is called a grounding practice. You may be familiar with this. It's talked about in many circles.

five, four, three, two, one. you start with five things that you can see and you just, the, the idea is to just be present to what's happening. So five things you can see four things you can touch three things you can hear two things you can smell and one thing that you can taste and just really being present to a moment and just stopping.

and being present. I've talked recently and often about prayer, where a prayer on breath where we breathe in and breathe out. And as we breathe in, we have a mantra or a Bible verse or a phrase that we think when we breathe in slowly and then breathe out slowly thinking another phrase. It's something we can do in the midst of people. We can be, you know, active, be at work and take a minute.

and just breathe in and thank God is with me, breathe out, God loves me and just slow down, slower breathing and be attentive to the way in which we may not even be breathing calmly. We may be fighting for everything and kind of gotten spun up. All of us have power in the ways that we have it. And I was thinking a lot about the writings of Elie Wiesel.

the other day and about how we can learn from our history, from our siblings and our religious figures about how in the time of stress and anxiety with war and broken relationships to re-center on what it is that we're about and how we have power and the ability in our sphere to make a difference, not only for ourselves, but for our children.

Bishop DeDe (05:03.705)
for our friends, our neighbors, our loved ones, the people around us. I love actually to talk about when we go to a store, and this is very small, very practical, but you're at the grocery store. I prefer to go where there's someone checking me out because you know, the whole thing about I want there to be jobs for people. But anyway, so I go and the person's checking me out and I'll say, how are you today? Or seems like it's kind of busy here today. Or,

something just about a small thing and just make conversation. Sometimes they're very happy about that and want to talk. Sometimes it's very cursory. But my hope is it's a touch point where we just have connection with another person of dignity, of recognition, and of acknowledgement. And so when we're walking past someone, when we're around people to be attentive to ways,

That we might reach out in a way that we don't normally do with where it work. And, know, and we really, Adam, we should really do a podcast about how to take God to the workplace. But, for you and I got, it's a little easier, but we can, when we're at work, listen for where someone may be feeling stress and instead of overlooking it or dismissing it to just be present to it and think, how might I be part of making this moment better?

What could I do that would be calming? What might I do that would be empowering? And how might I act in a way that reconnects me with what I want most in this world, a world that is safe, at peace, has dignity and purpose. So all of us have the agency in our sphere to practice these things. And then of course, as I said earlier, to limit the exposure to those things that make us feel powerless.

Um, to sleep, to exercise, to limit alcohol or caffeine, to limit those, uh, things that might steer us in the wrong direction for our lives. This is a moment when we need those touch points of dignity and hope, stability, safety, and power. So Adam, I'm going to invite you into this conversation. As we think about speaking of faith, how might we speak of our faith?

Bishop DeDe (07:28.565)
in ways that empower ourselves and others to reconnect with our greatest hope.

Adam Eichelberger (07:35.341)
think one of the great dangers, I'm going to speak for myself here, but I think that a lot of people can maybe agree with this. I think that one of the great dangers that we as Christians run into all the time is that if I am a Christian, I shouldn't worry. If I am a Christian, I don't have a reason to be afraid. I can tackle every task. I shouldn't show every weakness. You know, one of the simultaneously most beneficial and potentially more dangerous

Bishop DeDe (07:39.505)
yeah.

Bishop DeDe (07:51.203)
Right.

Adam Eichelberger (08:04.598)
scriptures is in Philippians in chapter four, verse 13, where it says, could do all things through Christ who strengthens me. Absolutely. But at the same time, I think that we put this big onus on ourselves to be God and that we're the ones who have all the solutions and that these anxieties and these fears and these worries that we are feeling all around us aren't valid because we got to, we got to just, we got to get through it. And I think it's, it's a really helpful reminder to me and

Bishop DeDe (08:19.885)
Mm-hmm.

Bishop DeDe (08:28.11)
Right.

Adam Eichelberger (08:34.862)
The reminder that Jesus himself, we believe was God, is God, but also fully human. And Jesus lived a fully human life. You we see in the scripture time and time again, these really important glimpses into Jesus's humanity. He gets angry. He sorrows. He cries at the loss of a friend. And this is kind of apropos for us because we're in Lent. We're moving towards Easter.

Bishop DeDe (08:44.11)
Right.

Adam Eichelberger (09:03.35)
And we hear the story of Jesus in the garden where he drops to his knees and he's praying and he's begging his father, like, if there's a way for this cup to pass from me, let it happen, but let your will be done. I think it's a really good reminder to take a step back and put ourselves in the, I would say the shoes, but we'll say the sandals of Jesus and recognize that even he has to confront these things. And so, so do we, we have to live with our humanity.

Bishop DeDe (09:05.901)
Mm-hmm.

Adam Eichelberger (09:33.261)
And I love what you're talking about, about finding a creative outlet, finding a prayer outlet, redoing that grounding work, which is so important to us. I think the question I would have is, do we struggle? What are the ways that we can confront this need for perfection in our lives? Now, I mean, I also will acknowledge that there are potentially some viewers or listeners who aren't Christians. And so maybe,

Bishop DeDe (09:54.019)
Mm-hmm.

Adam Eichelberger (10:03.16)
They're not feeling this from a perspective of like Christianity, but maybe in their own lives. They grew up in families where there were big demands put on them, or there's a lot of responsibilities in their workplace. Where is the way that we can start talking about and addressing this need for perfection, especially when it comes to what we're feeling in a really troubling time?

Bishop DeDe (10:08.231)
and

Bishop DeDe (10:28.525)
Well, I love several things to that. mean, one, it's interesting that you're connecting perfectionism with the anxiety and overwhelm we feel. And I think that is a really important connection to make because a lot of us think, if I just had more faith, then I would be calm. if I just believe that God was in charge, I would see the good in this. if I were just this, if I were that person, if I were those people.

We kind of look at somebody else is better at this than we are. And so what's wrong with me that I'm feeling so anxious. Other people aren't, you know, crying at night and feeling completely overwhelmed and having these feelings of complete anxiety. What's wrong with me? And those are understandable feelings and that we all kind of have them at times. But when those ghosts come up of really

insufficiency, we need to look at them and say, look, I get to feel how I'm feeling and I need to honor that I feel this way because I'm learning something here. When we feel overwhelmed, it's important to say, I feel overwhelmed. And so then we can get a sense of how much we can handle or how much we cannot handle to be sensitive to if I'm feeling this way, there may be others feeling this way. And so if I'm trying to

you know, suck it up and deny and, just act like, you know, I trust in God, then we're going to overlook a moment where we can actually heal and maybe move forward and not just stifle something. You said something very important. you know, Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane is a moment we need to absorb into our DNA because we often see that thing about, know, if I just believed in God more, I wouldn't doubt.

If I just believed in God more, I would just accept. And here you have the son of God in the garden before the passion, which if you're going to say a big moment, this is a big, big moment. And the son of God saying, I don't want to do this. Isn't there some other way? I will do this if I have to, but I really don't want to. So that moment of doubt and sorting through and wrestling through

Bishop DeDe (12:52.729)
Instead of seeing it as a deficit, it's actually holy. It's an intrinsic, holy, valuable part of our faith. And so we want to honor it in the same way we honor that reading and to seek the way in which Jesus also in that moment cries out to friends and says, why can't you even stay awake? Why can't you even support me? And we recognize that too. so to see that

in these moments where we feel this way, we are right there with Jesus. And perhaps most importantly, Jesus is right there with us. Not with judgment saying, come on, get over it, but with saying, I really understand, compassionately, I know just what you mean. I'm walking with you, I'm here with you. And so our faith as Christians has this beautiful complexity and enormity

that can encompass all these realities of being a human in this world. Now about that perfection thing, there's that saying that we used to be on posters and everything. There's two truths in the world. One is there is a God, two, you're not God. And I think for us in this time, there is power as Brene Brown would tell us, there is power in recognizing

our own humility and seeing that it is our being that is being saved. It isn't our doing that saves us. We think if we just do more, think more, read more, then we'll, but the calling of God is to being, taking up the cross and following Jesus is to be present, is to be in these moments and to pray.

and to live in that same path of walking with Jesus. So I think that it's important, those of us who are recovering perfectionists, to recognize that perfectionism is a sin in that it takes us from God. And in this Lenten season, what we're trying to do, and what the importance of it is, is to get things out of the way so God can work in us, so that we can be transformed by the loving, liberating,

Bishop DeDe (15:14.157)
You know, life of God in us. So I, those are great things to talk about. And I think also to be reminded of that when we're feeling like I can just need to do more, if I protest more and I think, well, important to use your voice, important to speak for what you want important to write your Congress person or, or advocate for the things you believe in.

And as a person of faith, the greatest advertisement for our faith is our own living of our lives. Our proclamation is in our living. And if we're giving into anger or cutting ourselves off, then our proclamation is limited and we don't feel whole then.

Adam Eichelberger (16:03.745)
It's a really good reminder too that there is so much complexity to our humanity. there's one thing I wanted to key in on and then something I wanted to share about some of the practices you talked about earlier. You brought up this great point that especially when we see turmoil all over the world, in our country, in our communities, we feel compelled to act. I want to make sure I'm going to speak for you for...

Bishop DeDe (16:08.494)
Mm-hmm.

Adam Eichelberger (16:29.583)
This is the one time I'm ever going to speak for you, Bishop, but I want to be clear for our viewers and our listeners. When we say that those things can be exhausting, nobody's saying that like, don't protest, don't use your voice. Absolutely do. But I kind of put that in my own life. don't know if you, any of you are like me. I put that in the bucket of when I do acts of service, when I try and go out and I, and I work with my food pantry or my soup kitchen. These things are.

Bishop DeDe (16:41.282)
No, that's right.

Adam Eichelberger (16:59.631)
acts where I'm pouring out and it's really important for me to make sure that I'm refilling the bucket because eventually if I'm not doing that, if I'm not finding time for prayer, for stillness, I find that the next time I'm trying to go out and pour out, there's nothing in the bucket and that doesn't help anybody. One of the things that's been really helpful for me is right here, this sometimes for those of you who are listening, I'm holding up my phone.

I have found that while this can be a giant distraction, one of the best things I started doing for me personally in my own spiritual life is I use the notes app on my iPhone. There's also a journaling app that just came out about a year ago that's native to your iPhone. If you're an Android person, they have a notes app and other journaling apps, but taking inventory of stuff throughout the day. Like at the end of my day, I try and make sure that I write down like what happened, what are some of the things that I did?

because even though I'm never solving the world's problems in those entries, I can look back and say like, okay, this was something that really worked well for me when I was in this moment. And I tried doing this and it didn't. I'm gonna be real honest. I've tried things like yoga before. I don't think that there's anything wrong with yoga from a spiritual perspective. I think there's something wrong with how my body responds to yoga. I'm just not built for the practice.

Bishop DeDe (18:25.378)
huh.

Adam Eichelberger (18:25.659)
And so when I've tried it, I've written it down and I've been like, I've really struggled with this. My whole question about this is, what do we do when we start undertaking these practices to help center and calm us, to help combat that anxiety or that worry, and we feel like it's not working? Where do we go from here?

Bishop DeDe (18:51.769)
Well, it's a great question and listener, each one of you can, something comes to mind for you, just like with me, where you think you should, know, all the shoulds. You know, a therapist once said to me, don't should on yourself. And this is a place to really pay attention to that. Don't be shoulding on yourself here because we, you know, this idea that I should do that or I should do that or, you know, this friend of mine finds great help with this. And when I do it, it doesn't work.

Adam Eichelberger (19:08.387)
You

Bishop DeDe (19:21.207)
We so often seek answers, especially in this time when we're overwhelmed, where we feel powerless. Because we feel powerless, we think somebody else has power, so let's go do what they're doing. And so we give away our agency very easily. Sometimes we give away our agency so quickly. You know, you're in a situation, you feel that you should say something to someone and say, you know, I'm praying for you. You doubt yourself, you withdraw, and then later you think,

I knew I should have believed in myself. And sometimes you may do the wrong thing. And we get so caught up in our perfectionism, wanting to do the right thing, that we give away our agency to do what we know to be true. So yoga isn't for you. That's a really helpful no. Sometimes no's really good. So no yoga, not helpful, good. So there's one thing off the list. So now you have 4,622,000 other practices.

that you can now continue to investigate. So just because one thing doesn't work for us doesn't mean we failed or we need to conform ourselves to make it work. It means that's not the practice for us. It may be those who are listening that when you hear about the notes app on your phone, I had a friend who set an alarm every hour. And when the ping went and he had it on the chime thing, whenever that went off, he had a prayer that he would say it was a

two or three sentence prayer. And so the alarm went off, he would say the prayer. And then the next hour he would say the prayer. Listener, I know there's some of you that would drive you nuts. You would just be like beating your phone with a hammer. That wouldn't work for everyone. But for some of us, perfect practice. Keep looking and keep trying, experiment with.

Adam Eichelberger (21:00.683)
You

Bishop DeDe (21:15.181)
You know, I went through a phase where I thought I needed to get up in the morning, read a chapter of scripture, pray, make a journal entry, and then, and the whole thing. It was like a whole deal. Well, I think God probably wanted to appear to me in a human form and say, stop, you're not, this isn't helpful for you. What actually is helpful for me is contemplative prayer, to sit in complete silence.

for five minutes and B, it connects me with my soul, it lightens up my heart, it reminds me that I'm alive and breathing and the things that matter most still matter most. And then I can go into the day connected to my deepest self. Some people, what I just described about getting up and praying and reading scripture would be perfect for them. That's what would be the practice for them. Some are runners.

and getting up and going for a run, summer walkers, getting up and walking. That thing that you do that connects you to who you be is the thing to do or are the things to do. And to not look for our agency outside of ourselves, because then it's just powerlessness, but to look for our agency in our own lives, to look for our agency with ourself and to start believing ourselves.

I mean, all of this outward input where we're looking at someone else and saying, they know better. Maybe if we listen to our internal self, the holy part of us will be more in contact. And I'm not talking about a base mentality where we just give in to every base instinct. I'm talking about actually aligning with what gives us hope, the fruits of the spirit, know, love and power and a sound mind.

And when we feel that we are co-opted by fear and anxiety to be come back to that place of our faith, God has not given us, know, for God has given us love and power and a sound mind, you know, and to really reconnect with our agency and do the practices that work for us specifically.

Adam Eichelberger (23:35.438)
I think the last thing that kind of came to my mind as we're talking about all this is we're talking about the fear and the anxiety and the worry and how we confront it. And we've talked about this on the show before. In fact, we have a whole episode about this, but I think it's really good to kind of as we as we're landing the plane, revisit just really quickly. How do we deal from a spiritual perspective with the malaise, that feeling of like, I just can't do it anymore. I'm so

Bishop DeDe (23:57.506)
Mm-hmm.

Adam Eichelberger (24:05.139)
this overwhelming feeling has moved into just exhaustion and like I said malaise. Like I just don't have the, I don't have it in me anymore. And again, I'm not trying to pick on things like protesting, but for somebody who has gone out and done this, it can feel like a lot. You know, we're going out and we're doing all this work. can feel like a lot. How do we confront this from a spiritual perspective as Christians?

Bishop DeDe (24:34.666)
Well, you know, and this is probably in the episode you're referencing, I'm big on the Gospel of Mark because in the Gospel of Mark, Jesus gives us a complete picture of how to deal with this. And in the Gospel of Mark listeners, you may remember the part where they're out in the boat and there's a big storm. And what's Jesus doing? He's sleeping. The times when we're exhausted and we need to rest.

Adam Eichelberger (24:58.029)
Mm-hmm.

Bishop DeDe (25:02.451)
It probably is the time we need to rest. And then there's those times where we just want to rest because we don't want to do the thing because we're tired of doing things because we're mad. We might need to do the thing. And sometimes it's a judgment call. And sometimes in the middle of it, we realize, Nope, I really should have taken a nap. Or we realize, Nope, I really should have made the phone call. But when we're overwhelmed to honor that, we're overwhelmed for reason to feel what we feel.

and to feel that it feels out of control, to feel that we feel like we have no agency, to recognize in that moment, like I said a minute ago, that vulnerability is an invitation to be present and learn from how we're feeling. so right now this is what it feels like to be a person living in this moment with all of this going around in this loss. And then to let ourselves feel that and maybe take the nap or take a minute or step back or be.

Practice do the practice five four three two one or whatever practice we need to to recenter And then to begin to focus on what is life-giving to me? What what would be the best right next thing to do? What would you know listen to music or cooking dinner for a friend or calling a friend or reaching out to someone and saying I'm overwhelmed and I need company or To to actually take seriously those feelings of overwhelm

not to dismiss them or think, I'll just work harder, but to say, you know what, it's really appropriate in this moment to feel overwhelmed. And so to take a minute and to also recognize that, you know, activism especially doesn't reside in one person. We all are called to be and do the things we're called to be and do. Maybe today is the day for you to rest like Jesus rested.

And then of course, Jesus goes out and preaches and heals and works and proclaims, and then he comes back in and rests. Then he goes out and proclaims and then he comes back in and rests. So to look at our lives for that pattern, and you said it so well, we give and give and give, but if we're not refilling our spirit, if we're not refilling our connection with God, if we're not reconnecting with our deepest souls, we get destabilized.

Bishop DeDe (27:30.187)
So, dear friend, send in your questions and your comments, your feedback. I want to hear from you. How do you rebalance in the midst of all of this anxiety and destabilization? What has been helpful for you and what are some things that have not been helpful? What are some things that you just need to say and kind of get off your chest? In this podcast, we talk about speaking of our faith. My hope is it will draw us closer to God and to be reminded that

All of the things we need to say and to speak may not need to be said out loud, but we need to be aware of them and pay attention. So my prayer for all of us is that we will find a place of safety and stability. May you know that you are loved, be blessed and be a blessing. And I pass the baton to you. Let us go forth and speak of our faith, proclaiming God's love to this world and share with one another, how do we find stability in unstable times?

May God be with you on that journey and take good care.